Length of a short story

i would say 15K words is a very LONG short story and 65K is a short novel ... novellas stop at 50 i think ...

sounds like a tall story to us. send it anyway. we can soon edit it down to size. we also would like to announce that we are constantly on the lookout for new talent. In the last five years we have taken on two new authors and 3 new poets so please one and all, send in your selections now, you never know when it's your turn to be drawn from the binxxx dammtypos ... large selection of quality work we receive daily. yours, Ed-bin-laden the fiction dept.

I think poetry gets too much profile on this site and this is the reason : short stories take much more effort to read and if they do not grab the reader instantly then the reader hits the back browser and finds something else. Poems are short. In some cases this is merciful. If readers have short attention spans then poetry is ideal. Users of the net in particular do have short attention spans. But poetry is a mug's game in some ways. There are very few people who make money at it. Is this another reason it appeals? It is art in pure form and unsullied by filthy lucre. I bet most of the poets on the site hardly ever read any poetry and it is even less likely that they buy any. But National Poetry Day flourishes. Where is National Short Story Day?

ooooooooooooh! *clasps handbag excitedly*

There's no set length for a short story, the way i see it. Some of the best are merely a thousand words... some of the worst are longer than needed and allof the ...eh....... ach,lost my trainof thought i can't concentrate beyond fifty words...